Numbers 13:1–14:45 and Deuteronomy 1:19–45 both tell the story of the spies. Whereas Numbers 13:1–2 says that God told Moses to send men to spy out the land of Canaan, in Deuteronomy 1:22–23, Moses recounted that all the Israelites asked him to send men to search the land, and the idea pleased him.

In the Hebrew Bible, God’s reference to Caleb as “my servant” (עַבְדִּי, avdi) in Numbers 14:24 echoes God’s application of the same term to Abraham[1] and Moses.[2] And later, God uses the term to refer to Moses,[3] David,[4] Isaiah, [5] Eliakim the son of Hilkiah,[6] Israel,[7] Nebuchadnezzar,[8] Zerubbabel,[9] the Branch,[10] and Job[11]

Exodus 35:3 prohibits kindling fire on the Sabbath. Numbers 15:32–33 reports that when the Israelites came upon a man gathering wood on the Sabbath (apparently with the intent to fuel a fire), they brought him before Moses, Aaron, and the community and placed him in custody, “because it had not been declared what should be done to him.”[12] Clearing up any uncertainty about whether the man had violated the law, God told Moses that the whole community was to stone him outside the camp, and they did.[13]